Production of sucrose is essentially a process of fractionate crystallization. This fractionate crystallization is preceded by a number of steps amply documented in literature, e.g. P. Honig: Principles of Sugar Technology. The more impurities are removed, the higher the yield, in the final step, of sucrose. A number of techniques is available to remove such impurities as can not be precipitated and mechanically removed. They may be, for example, electrodialysis, ultrafiltration, reverse osmosis, and, of particular interest to me, ion exchange.
All of the currently proposed techniques result in higher yields of sugar and lower yields of the usually less valuable molasses.
All of these said techniques, however, require substantial pretreatments and have a high capital investment and/or high energy requirement.
This invention does away with many pretreatments and reduces both capital and operating cost.